Post by maddogfagin on Oct 20, 2011 17:40:29 GMT

It is a great privilage and honour to announce that Dee Palmer has kindly agreed to answer questions from JT Forum members. I have been in touch with her via my good friend Dave Rees and to begin with I asked her a couple of Tull related questions, the content of which has fascinated the vast majority of fans down the years.

If you'd like to ask Dee some questions, either post them on this thread or use the PM facility.

MD: In 1984 you wrote the incidental and theme music for the TV documentary series "Blood Of The British" and it's a great shame that apart from the re-recorded "Coronach" in 1986, no other pieces of music from the series were ever released commercially. What are your thoughts about the music you wrote for this and do the tapes of the music still exist?

DP: Underscore i.e.”background music” is – if it does its job properly – to be felt rather than heard and, oft times, such music or musical devices (which enforce, dramatically, the mood of the action on screen) is/are either little more than clusters of notes held in suspension without seeking resolution to a tonality, or fragmented melodies which, similarly, never (or rarely) reach a cadence.

In writing underscore, one avoids like the plague “full stops” i.e.cadences, and, therefore, taken away from the drama for which it was composed, very little underscore merits a hearing when removed from the images it was constructed – contrived would be better – and the underscore to Blood of The British is no exception to that.

Moreover, during my apprenticeship as “ghost writer” to the revered English film music composer who gave me my first big break on leaving the Royal Academy of Music, I learned from him this simple yet most enduring and effective rule: One film – One tune.

The first three notes of Coronach – C F G – were all that I needed to refer to in the composition of the underscore to The Blood of The British. Of course I used more than those three notes but the CFG motif is predominant and, therefore, pervasive = boring!

Where the score and tapes are now I have no idea. I’ve written enough media garbage in my life to paper the M1 so I suppose some of it may still lurk in the dingy basements of those commissioning bodies whose shilling I took – and that’s about what it was - but the experience I gained in earning it was priceless.

MD: You formed "Tallis" after the Stormwatch tour but to this day only one track from the proposed album has ever surfaced on a compilation CD produced by A New Day. Apart from yourself and John Evan, who was also involved with the group, is it possible that the proposed album will ever be released?

DP: Tallis began life when I was a serving member in Jethro Tull. (The name is, of course, taken from Thomas Tallis - one of the two founding fathers of the golden age of English Music. William Byrd was the other.

At a time when no one (other than students of advanced harmony and counterpoint and, particularly, canonic form) knew of the existence of Pachelbel’s Canon and Gigue in D, I arranged the canon for three synthesisers, bass guitar and drums. I studied and analysed it whilst a student at the RAM; the Gigue is also a superb example of the form and style of the period.It was recorded at Maison Rouge in 1977 with John Glasscock and Barrie Barlow. The acoustic guitar was played by Robert Foster - a pupil of mine when I held a teaching post at Trinity College. He later joined Griffon – a slightly more esoteric group but not dissimilar to Tull. I played all the keyboard parts (including portative pipe organ).

Barrie, who has a good ear for a song, was convinced – and I think rightly so - that we had a hit but, sadly - and relying, wholly, upon their superlative lack of elective and discretionary skills - the “Um & Er” department at Chrysalis passed; I suspect they’d have passed on Beethoven and The Beatles, too.When I left Tull I returned to film writing and session work. In the village in which I lived at that time I was often asked to perform (with others) to raise funds for the village school and the ancient church and, on one such occasion, suggested a concert by Tallis – which, at the time, didn’t exist.!

I invited John Evans to work on a Mozart piano concerto – John playing the solo part and me the orchestral part on another piano. It worked well and I invited Dave Bristow (who, later, went on to work on the development of the Yamaha DX7) to join us together with Mickey Barker (drums) and Bill Worrall (another pupil from my Trinity College days) bass and vocals. Barrie was asked to join but declined – he had other offers and his own group, Tandoori Cassette, to develop.

We rehearsed for a couple of months. Together with other pieces which I’d written specially for the group, I arranged Debussy’s “Sunken Cathedral” and some parts of Beethoven’s Fifth symphony - I’d already scored the scherzo from the 9th symphony for the Tullettes.

We performed just two gigs. The first was at West Clandon Parish Church, the other at Surrey University. I have a great photograph of the group - I’ll have it posted in one of my blogs; this seems, rapidly, to becoming one!!

We recorded all the material we had rehearsed and performed and attracted very favourable comments from EMI, Decca and Virgin with all of them urging us to go on the road and get a fan base together,but Dave Bristow was offered the Yamaha job, I was no good at trying to organise other people’s lives and be responsible for providing an income stream for them so we called it a day. That’s it.

A release of the album is not going to happen. You’ve heard “Disturbed Air” and, btw, none of that track was sequenced – we played it all in real time.

Maybe I’ll post a couple of other tracks soon. I have in mind “Christmas Canons”. Nice…………..

(Copyright 2011, Dee Palmer & The Jethro Tull Forum)

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention” ― Kahlil Gibran

Post by snaffler on Oct 21, 2011 13:19:59 GMT

hello Dee, i suppose there isnt a question you havent been asked about your time with jethro tull, so forgive me if i what i'm going to ask is another old chestnut! do you regard the musicianship of the band during your time with it was at its peak? speaking as a very poor musician myself, i regard jethro tull as being the tightest band i have ever heard and i remember an interview you gave once saying the band had played badly once, around the time of the death of john glascock. this must have been so marginal! i cant remember ever hearing a bum note on any occasion i saw the band around that time as well as on the many recordings which are out there! cheers tim

Post by steelmonkey on Oct 21, 2011 15:54:23 GMT

Dear Ms Palmer,

No question at the moment but I do want to join the chorus of 'welcome' to you and also express gratitude for your frank, informative answers and, above all, impatience for more Tallis and/or others samples of your post-Tull work not yet available. Oh, I thought up a question...have you had much contact with fellow Tull alum Andrew Giddings, also a member here and have you given his solo work a listen? If yes....you like?

Post by celtrock on Oct 22, 2011 3:12:53 GMT

Hey Dee,

I wanted to let you know that Stormwatch is my favorite Tull album and that, when I was a kid, I actually sat down to learn Elegy at the piano (though I'm a guitarist). It is one of my favorites. Something about the tune always struck me and though, as a kid, I was a long haired rocker, I always appreciated the orchestral work and tunes like Elegy. As I've been renovating my daughter's room, Stormwatch has been the soundtrack to the project which is funny because I have my own group (http://www.prydein.com) and yet you'll never find me listening to that stuff as I work around the house. ;-)

BTW, as a corollary to my answer to the Tallis question I should, perhaps, have said that the outcome of our efforts produced a kind of "Curate's Egg" i.e. good in parts!

Best wishes,Dee

Thank you for that link Dee and a song that I hadn't heard before Train Song - beautiful.

Like many others I'm so pleased that you have decided to share your stories and memories both on the internet and as a book. As a fan listening to music old/ new is compulsory however learning about the people and stories behind it is all the better.

Post by deepalmer on Oct 25, 2011 9:21:54 GMT

No question at the moment but I do want to join the chorus of 'welcome' to you and also express gratitude for your frank, informative answers and, above all, impatience for more Tallis and/or others samples of your post-Tull work not yet available. Oh, I thought up a question...have you had much contact with fellow Tull alum Andrew Giddings, also a member here and have you given his solo work a listen? If yes....you like?

No - I have no contact with Andrew. After all, we're from quite different periods int the evolution and continuance of the JT brand.I did listen to his album. Like everything AG does it is extremely polished and truly reflective of his creative and technical skills.

Post by deepalmer on Oct 25, 2011 10:36:38 GMT

Dear Dee.. could you tell us what John Glascock was like off stage? About his personality, his interests, and so on were?

John Glascock had the soul and demeanour of a man in love with love with life and was totally at ease with the management of himself.He was generous to a fault, and in every dimension, too: he would have given you the coat off his back if you'd asked.

His committment to music and music making throughout the comparatively short time I knew him i.e. from 1975 to 1979 was similar to my own and, for that matter, to that of every keen student of the subject who I've ever known. It was a 24/7 thing to him. (Other, of course, than the relationship he had with a blow up doll which he kept in his shower cubicle and whom, he was convinced - or so he told us - had been unfaithful with a plumber who'd come (no pun) to repair John's shower head!)

His humour was blokishly and irreverently infectious and on many a long journey he'd keep us amused with his "takes" on the games we used to play to pass the time. It was usually a riotous experience with his malapropisms and crazy, Cockney laugh having us rolling around and laughing with him.

I can aver, and without devaluing the merit and tenor of our friendship, that I loved him - really loved him - and I treasure, still, the several gifts which he made to me during our, all too brief, involvement as musicians and friends: Maggie and our children adored him too.

I recall him once asking me to accompany him to the uttermost, upper area of some stadium we were about to play in and us sitting there, watching the roadies (who, from that distance, resembled pin-men) going about there work and John turning to me and saying "This is my life, DP". "It's all I've ever wanted to do; to be in a band and one as good as this but I live, each day, in fear that one night I'll jump out onto the riser down there - on our side of the stage - and come down a bag of bones - stone dead".

But for the detail, his words proved to be a self fulfilling prophesy.

I'm sure that, following his surgery, John knew he was on borrowed time and, notwithstanding his drug addiction or the damning effect his regrettable dismissal from the group had upon him, his early demise would not -were he able to tell us from the grave - have come to him as any kind of surprise.

Post by deepalmer on Oct 25, 2011 10:56:36 GMT

hello Dee, what do you think was the best jethro tull album you were involved with and why?

The best? Why - "This Was", of course. It was my beginning.

Then the best became "Stand Up," then "Aqualung" and so on and so on until Storm Watch, which - if you seek my opinion - was a very good album, BUT it could have been a Great Album.

When I was involved creatively in making any one of the Tull albums (or singles) the purpose of my role was - and I quote the lapidary words of Bill Shankly (Manager of Liverpool FC) - "Not a matter of life and death; it was much more important than that!"

Post by deepalmer on Oct 25, 2011 11:31:33 GMT

hello Dee, i suppose there isnt a question you havent been asked about your time with jethro tull, so forgive me if i what i'm going to ask is another old chestnut! do you regard the musicianship of the band during your time with it was at its peak? speaking as a very poor musician myself, i regard jethro tull as being the tightest band i have ever heard and i remember an interview you gave once saying the band had played badly once, around the time of the death of john glascock. this must have been so marginal! i cant remember ever hearing a bum note on any occasion i saw the band around that time as well as on the many recordings which are out there! cheers tim

Hello Tim,

Yes. We were a very tight band. We had to be; we were, most times, playing complex music and on a stage 40 feet wide, too!However, regardless of who's been in the crew at the time, Ian runs a tight ship and always has done. Is there any other way?

We did play appallingly badly on the last but one date of the autumn, 1979 USA tour. It was in San Diego.

After the gig, Barrie, John E, Martin, myself and "new-boy", Dave Pegg, were summoned to the food room by the tour manager.

I really thought we were going to be put into the "Big Slap Book"!

That was not the case.

Ian came in, asked if anyone was absent and then said "I have bad news. John Glascock died last night".

(Needless to say, big changes were made a few months later but my contract of service had expired on 31st December 1979, anyway.)

Ironically, on the subject of "Bum Notes," I'll never forget during the opening of one show - we were starting with Thick as A Brick -John G had miscounted the bars in the intro of the song and pulled out the loudest F natural ever played in the wrong place in any performance in any of the the auditoria of the Western World, EVER!!!.

You know, where the band play the loud chord after Ian sings "...your deafness, a Shout!"John came in a phrase early.

I thought Barrie was going to fall off his drum stool - he was laughing so much as we all were. Ian smiled, too, I recall.

Post by hipflaskandy on Oct 25, 2011 11:49:32 GMT

Hi Dee - welcome from me, too.Thanks for being so informative - and open (I welled up reading your lovely words about dear John G - I am, still, a real fan of his contibution to the music and also the 'look' of the band).

My own questions to you would be long and involved and take lengthy, detailed replies - and I wouldn't want to burden you.But (and i'll take whatever answers you have time for) they would centre round asking how certain arrangements for songs came about.In what form you'd first hear a new IA piece - how far developed. How much input you (all/individually) could make, embellish, add.Whether songs were developed by rehearsal? Attempting ideas in studio? Bouncing your ideas back and forth? Basically - how the machinations/dynamics of construction worked?On any given IA comp, surely not all the subtexts and wee melodies came from the one source, did they?When I sit listening to any given piece, I find myself thinking (imagining I believe) that this particular section 'must' have been an insert from your good self - or Martin, or whoever?For just one or two wee examples (of many I'd like to get to), the 'classical-sounding' sections that intersperse 'Velvet Green' - I always imagined you were behind those?The string section of 'Heavy Horses... your arrangement, but was it totally an IA melody? Or is your hand in there for more than merely scoring the orchestral parts?Jings! There's far too many individual pieces I'd like to itemise!Anything along the lines of an explanation of 'how the process generally worked' would be grand, thanks. And specific examples would be even grander.Cheers Dee - have loved your presence - all th' very best - Duncan

Post by bunkerfan on Oct 25, 2011 18:58:25 GMT

Hello Dee,Thank you very much for your answers to the questions posted. I'm particularly interested and amused with your answer to snaffler's question " i can't remember ever hearing a bum note on any occasion" and your answer "You know, where the band play the loud chord after Ian sings "...your deafness, a Shout!"John came in a phrase early." That must have been a very rare mistake in Tull history but, I'm sure John was forgiven.My question which I hope will be an easy one to answer... "From all the orchestral arrangements with Jethro Tull you were associated with, which one still gives you most satisfaction to have been a part of ?"CheersJohn

Post by deepalmer on Oct 26, 2011 7:26:52 GMT

Hello Dee,Thank you very much for your answers to the questions posted. I'm particularly interested and amused with your answer to snaffler's question " i can't remember ever hearing a bum note on any occasion" and your answer "You know, where the band play the loud chord after Ian sings "...your deafness, a Shout!"John came in a phrase early." That must have been a very rare mistake in Tull history but, I'm sure John was forgiven.My question which I hope will be an easy one to answer... "From all the orchestral arrangements with Jethro Tull you were associated with, which one still gives you most satisfaction to have been a part of ?"CheersJohn

Dear John,

Everything I ever wrote for the group (with the exception of some wretched strings on "I'll be loving you tonight") was used and usually melded seemlessly into the mood and body of the song and, dare I say, was - largely - fit for purpose.

I'm not at all an indulgent type and will resist the compiling of a selection of my "A" list contributions for you to make your own, final selection.However, why not listen (again!) to Mouse Police. It is the instrumental section between 1.24 and 1.45, where I composed a fugato episode which is based upon the theme of "Three Blind Mice."Clever stuff, but Hey! - I like that kind of thing. Moreover, it attracted - merited, perhaps? - Ian's highest accolade i.e. "Nice part, DP".

Post by nonrabbit on Oct 26, 2011 9:23:30 GMT

Dee

I'll make the obvious assumption and use the obvious cliche that music is the key to your soul and your means of artistic communication however I see that you also write and paint.

Do you have a preference if you had to choose between painting or writing? Did you enjoy the writing process, in particular your autobiography and do you have plans to write further in both fiction and non fiction?

Post by maddogfagin on Oct 27, 2011 18:03:16 GMT

Hi Dee

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but after all these years what are your thoughts about "The Water's Edge". Many Tull fans rate the music highly and I wonder if it is a body of work you might re-visit sometime in the future or do you think it is better left alone after all these years. And what do you think of it as a piece of music these days?

What of your current musical activities? I see from you web site you intend to release an album of your own compositions but do you intend producing anymore classical re-interpretations of the music of rock acts such as you previously did with Tull, Genesis et al

Thanks

Graham, Cornwall

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention” ― Kahlil Gibran

Post by bunkerfan on Oct 28, 2011 8:57:50 GMT

Hello Dee,Thank you very much for your answers to the questions posted. I'm particularly interested and amused with your answer to snaffler's question " i can't remember ever hearing a bum note on any occasion" and your answer "You know, where the band play the loud chord after Ian sings "...your deafness, a Shout!"John came in a phrase early." That must have been a very rare mistake in Tull history but, I'm sure John was forgiven.My question which I hope will be an easy one to answer... "From all the orchestral arrangements with Jethro Tull you were associated with, which one still gives you most satisfaction to have been a part of ?"CheersJohn

Dear John,

Everything I ever wrote for the group (with the exception of some wretched strings on "I'll be loving you tonight") was used and usually melded seemlessly into the mood and body of the song and, dare I say, was - largely - fit for purpose.

I'm not at all an indulgent type and will resist the compiling of a selection of my "A" list contributions for you to make your own, final selection.However, why not listen (again!) to Mouse Police. It is the instrumental section between 1.24 and 1.45, where I composed a fugato episode which is based upon the theme of "Three Blind Mice."Clever stuff, but Hey! - I like that kind of thing. Moreover, it attracted - merited, perhaps? - Ian's highest accolade i.e. "Nice part, DP".

Yours, etc.

Dee

Hello Dee,My untrained musical ears would never have picked up three blind mice in Mouse Police. For that I thank you. John

And who comes here to wish me well?A sweetly-scented angel fell,She laid her head upon my disbelief,And bathed me with her ever-smile.

Post by deepalmer on Oct 28, 2011 10:23:06 GMT

I'll make the obvious assumption and use the obvious cliche that music is the key to your soul and your means of artistic communication however I see that you also write and paint.

Do you have a preference if you had to choose between painting or writing? Did you enjoy the writing process, in particular your autobiography and do you have plans to write further in both fiction and non fiction?

Yes - music does it for me, that's true, and it always will though it's scary to think that one will never have the time to realise in any way fully, one's aspirations as a composer; moreso, not to have visited and studied much of the vast body of important work in all periods, idioms and styles.

Regrettably, I didn't start music until I was almost nineteen; plus I did some soldiering before that and I was expelled from school at the age of fifteen, too, so a big chunk of what would have been prime learning time, I denied myself. Next time round, maybe?.....ho-ho-ho.......

Painting or writing?

I'm safer with writing, in that I may just have that one, maybe two, elusive original ideas up my sleeve!

You only need one, you know: it's sufficient enough to knock it around, bend it, invert it and convince your self and, hopefully, everyone else, that it's brand new (and of the moment) before you proceed to offer it up yet again!A bit like new relationships and love I suppose; though, both of which, I have become a comparative stranger to.

Also; I'm quite familiar with (and a student of) the English language as seen in the St James Bible, The book of Common Prayer and the works of Shakespeare and other English writers and dramatists, so - akin to the session piano player (who knows all the tunes in all the keys) I know most of the plots in most of the stories and the styles in which they were written.

It's an enjoyable doddle, writing, and following the serialisation of "Becoming Me" on my website, I intend (until dissuaded) to offer more fact and fiction: so, too, painting is a doddle - but in that medium I am a mere dabbler.

A dauber - better - so it's writing which has first call on my affection and attention.

It was Ian - whilst we were sharing a house in LA in 1975 and writing Minstrel in the Gallery - and who had been an Art School student, who introduced me to fine art via the unlikely medium of Renee Magritte, whose name, you'll remember, crops up in "From a Deadbeat to an Old Greaser."

It is since then - and mostly since I, at last, had the time to spend - I have enjoyed my attempts at creating with watercolours and inks.

My "mentor" is Cezanne - the painters painter - and my favoured school the American "Minimalists" i.e. Brice Marden, Mark Rothman, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock (who, btw, did not only "splash" paint on canvas; there's much, much more to him than just that part of his oeuvre.)

I paint "in the style of" as distinct from claiming any of my efforts to be - in any manner or style - original.

Finally, and with painting in mind, may I offer this choice Barrie Barlow anecdote from way back in 1976.

"Jeffrey has left the group and moved to Herefordshire to concentrate on painting. So far, he has done the hall, stairs and landing."

Post by deepalmer on Oct 28, 2011 10:55:16 GMT

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but after all these years what are your thoughts about "The Water's Edge". Many Tull fans rate the music highly and I wonder if it is a body of work you might re-visit sometime in the future or do you think it is better left alone after all these years. And what do you think of it as a piece of music these days?

What of your current musical activities? I see from you web site you intend to release an album of your own compositions but do you intend producing anymore classical re-interpretations of the music of rock acts such as you previously did with Tull, Genesis et al

Thanks

Graham, Cornwall

Dear Graham,

re Waters Edge.

I'll go with your prompt and leave it undisturbed if you don't mindthough I'm surprised that so many JT fans "rate the music highly."

(Where can they have heard it, I wonder?)re Current musical activities?

Still trying to write a better song. (I'm sure you are able to decipher that simple crypticism.)

re the Symphonic Rock Series.

There's nothing further planned but it would be nice to do a Prom with a selection of the material - perhaps with Paul Carrack and Lance Ellington as featured singers.

Maybe enough people will write to the Proms office at the BBC for them to consider it.Why not be the first, Graham?

Post by nonrabbit on Oct 28, 2011 17:34:19 GMT

I'll make the obvious assumption and use the obvious cliche that music is the key to your soul and your means of artistic communication however I see that you also write and paint.

Do you have a preference if you had to choose between painting or writing? Did you enjoy the writing process, in particular your autobiography and do you have plans to write further in both fiction and non fiction?

Yes - music does it for me, that's true, and it always will though it's scary to think that one will never have the time to realise in any way fully, one's aspirations as a composer; moreso, not to have visited and studied much of the vast body of important work in all periods, idioms and styles.

Regrettably, I didn't start music until I was almost nineteen; plus I did some soldiering before that and I was expelled from school at the age of fifteen, too, so a big chunk of what would have been prime learning time, I denied myself. Next time round, maybe?.....ho-ho-ho.......

Painting or writing?

I'm safer with writing, in that I may just have that one, maybe two, elusive original ideas up my sleeve!

You only need one, you know: it's sufficient enough to knock it around, bend it, invert it and convince your self and, hopefully, everyone else, that it's brand new (and of the moment) before you proceed to offer it up yet again!A bit like new relationships and love I suppose; though, both of which, I have become a comparative stranger to.

Also; I'm quite familiar with (and a student of) the English language as seen in the St James Bible, The book of Common Prayer and the works of Shakespeare and other English writers and dramatists, so - akin to the session piano player (who knows all the tunes in all the keys) I know most of the plots in most of the stories and the styles in which they were written.

It's an enjoyable doddle, writing, and following the serialisation of "Becoming Me" on my website, I intend (until dissuaded) to offer more fact and fiction: so, too, painting is a doddle - but in that medium I am a mere dabbler.

A dauber - better - so it's writing which has first call on my affection and attention.

It was Ian - whilst we were sharing a house in LA in 1975 and writing Minstrel in the Gallery - and who had been an Art School student, who introduced me to fine art via the unlikely medium of Renee Magritte, whose name, you'll remember, crops up in "From a Deadbeat to an Old Greaser."

It is since then - and mostly since I, at last, had the time to spend - I have enjoyed my attempts at creating with watercolours and inks.

My "mentor" is Cezanne - the painters painter - and my favoured school the American "Minimalists" i.e. Brice Marden, Mark Rothman, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock (who, btw, did not only "splash" paint on canvas; there's much, much more to him than just that part of his oeuvre.)

I paint "in the style of" as distinct from claiming any of my efforts to be - in any manner or style - original.

Finally, and with painting in mind, may I offer this choice Barrie Barlow anecdote from way back in 1976.

"Jeffrey has left the group and moved to Herefordshire to concentrate on painting. So far, he has done the hall, stairs and landing."

Tres drole, n'est ce pas?

DP

Dee

Music must be different to writing prose/poetry in respect of age. I didn't start writing till I was fifty I reckoned that I had stored up enough stories and experience by then.

Post by deepalmer on Oct 29, 2011 9:42:08 GMT

I'll make the obvious assumption and use the obvious cliche that music is the key to your soul and your means of artistic communication however I see that you also write and paint.

Do you have a preference if you had to choose between painting or writing? Did you enjoy the writing process, in particular your autobiography and do you have plans to write further in both fiction and non fiction?

Post by steelmonkey on Oct 29, 2011 18:46:06 GMT

Dear DP,

We usually associate you with the late 70's when Tull was a fine-tuned music making machine...but as you reminded us with the affection for 'This Was', you were there at the start. Do tell...how as it with the original quartet? Humble provincial novelties trying their luck in the big time or confident guys who had a plan? And what of Ian? How was his evolution from Blackpool success to finding his way in the metropolis? I cringe when i think of the hustlers and druggy 60s types who probably threw themselves at young Ian, not all with good intent. Did inbred cynicism shield him or was there a learning curve with harsh bumps? Did you have a role in helping the founding four thru the social and business mazes that awaited them in 1968 London or did they already have helpers at hand?

Post by deepalmer on Nov 2, 2011 20:49:26 GMT

Hi Dee - welcome from me, too.Thanks for being so informative - and open (I welled up reading your lovely words about dear John G - I am, still, a real fan of his contibution to the music and also the 'look' of the band).

My own questions to you would be long and involved and take lengthy, detailed replies - and I wouldn't want to burden you.But (and i'll take whatever answers you have time for) they would centre round asking how certain arrangements for songs came about.In what form you'd first hear a new IA piece - how far developed. How much input you (all/individually) could make, embellish, add.Whether songs were developed by rehearsal? Attempting ideas in studio? Bouncing your ideas back and forth? Basically - how the machinations/dynamics of construction worked?On any given IA comp, surely not all the subtexts and wee melodies came from the one source, did they?When I sit listening to any given piece, I find myself thinking (imagining I believe) that this particular section 'must' have been an insert from your good self - or Martin, or whoever?For just one or two wee examples (of many I'd like to get to), the 'classical-sounding' sections that intersperse 'Velvet Green' - I always imagined you were behind those?The string section of 'Heavy Horses... your arrangement, but was it totally an IA melody? Or is your hand in there for more than merely scoring the orchestral parts?Jings! There's far too many individual pieces I'd like to itemise!Anything along the lines of an explanation of 'how the process generally worked' would be grand, thanks. And specific examples would be even grander.Cheers Dee - have loved your presence - all th' very best - Duncan

Dear Duncan,

Thank you for your kind words of welcome.

You enquired as to how the "Machinations & Dynamics of Construction of the Jethro Tull oeuvre 1968 - 1980" worked.

Well! May I remind you that you said at the same time "you didn't want to burden me with having to provide lengthy answers" and I shall, therefore, take your point!

The whole creative process began with and flowed - more or less entirely - from Ian ; he was the "sine qua non" - i.e. without whom, nothing - and he had the last word in any debate concerning style OR substance in our individual or concerted efforts to add to his essential, core material - which as a way of working is (and always was) just fine with me.

(I did military service, Duncan, and the FIRST thing one needs when the SHTF is sensible but firm orders coming from the troop leader or senior officer; the analogy extends nicely to describe how life was in the Tullettes.) Discipline and order.

In so far as "to how and to what" I brought to the party, I can tell you that songs such as "Move on alone", "Reasons for Waiting," "A Christmas Song," "Sweet Dream", "Teacher," "Witches Promise," "Life is a Long Song", "Bungle," "Rainbow Blues" etc. were - apart from the material which I wrote and supervised the recording of - finished items long before I was briefed and picked up my pencil. So, too, were the Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, A Passion Play and Warchild albums.

After "Move on Alone", Ian would just "bike"me a tape and some broad, written,instructions. I still have the cassettes!!I wrote the score to Christmas Song in a studio (where I was conducting a session) and we recorded the strings that SAME NIGHT!!!

It was with Minstrel in the Gallery onwards that I had an involvement from the beginning.

You wouldn't know this but the intro to "Too Old to R an R" is a section I wrote for a track on Minstrel which I played on Clarinet - but it didn't make the cut in the final mix.You can hear it quoted quite clearly (played by the violins) in Baker St Muse.

Here's another place to go back to and listen to again.In One White Duck, close your eyes and see if you can hear the pizzicato strings imitating the "Quack, quack, quack" of a flight of ducks when Ian sings "...one white duck on a wall"......?

That's why I was in the band - I had my own stash of goodies.So did everyone else have theirs and we all played to our strengths.

Re Velvet Green; Yes - I wrote those bits in Velvet Green.I was also responsible for the instrumental sections in Songs from The Wood and Pibroch; the intro (and its repeats) to Hunting Girl and the "Carillon" of bells at the end of Ring out Solstice Bells BUT Ian wrote the songs before I got at them.

The string score I wrote to Heavy Horses is kind of "Vintage Stuff" when you listen to and compare it with my writing for the group over all those years we were together.

rabey: Thanks for the interest. Unfortunately because Ian/Tull is doing his own book when I sent a request to find John I got stonewalled, even though I have a signed contract by Ian from 2013 stating I was doing a DVD version of The book. I also have had troubleMay 7, 2019 23:11:47 GMT

rabey: I guess after 5 years Ian forgot this even existed. Imean, he never even listed my book with all the other books that have been out of print for decades, yet mine and Tim S still have books in print and we're not mentioned.May 7, 2019 23:13:11 GMT

rabey: I just get the impression that this AND having just dealt with Tull are all they care about really and it peeves me when the truth is when I first got my original contract with a US publisher to write the book with quotes on 3 other books on ELP,Crimson,May 7, 2019 23:21:53 GMT

rabey: and YES, I contacted both Martin and Dave from AND and offered involvement in writing and photography. but Dave said no interest and martin was happy to get his photos printed just for credit. Later Daves book arrived and martin wanted 100 bucks a shot.May 7, 2019 23:25:00 GMT

rabey: Anyway, The publisher refused the cost of photos, Martin wrote the only negative review of the book in print except for Amazon where a few stinkers stalled it's movement, but basically there was nothing advertising the book outside the UK. May 7, 2019 23:29:01 GMT